One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each Read online

  Fujiwara no Toshiyuki (d. 901). In addition to his poetic talents, he was also a celebrated calligrapher who served under four different emperors. In 897 he became Captain of the Imperial Guard of the Right. Toshiyuki has twenty-nine poems in the imperial waka anthologies and a private collection. He is one of Kinto’s Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses.

  19

  This poem employs one of the most famous ‘poem pillows’ or utamakura, the Naniwa Inlet (see also poems 20 and 88). Demarking the area of the Yodo River estuary near present-day Osaka, it was well known for the reeds (ashi) referred to in the poem and was used in love poetry to signify intense feelings of love (see commentary to poem 20). It also appears in the Kokinshū preface in one of the most famous poems in classical Japanese literature:

  At Naniwa Bay,

  blossoms bloom.

  Blossoms that slept

  through winter,

  now bloom in spring.

  Like the previous poem, poem 19 deals with the difficulty of meeting a lover. From a rhetorical perspective, it provides an excellent example of how a pivot phrase functions, creating two entirely different sets of readings. The phrase fushi mo ma (a very short space/time) indicates both the tiny distance between the nodes on a reed and the brevity of a furtive encounter. In the Japanese, it acts as a pivot between ‘should we never meet again for even the shortest time’ and ‘short as the space between the nodes on a reed’, emphasizing the connection between the natural imagery (the reeds of the Naniwa Inlet) and the experience of the unhappy lover who cannot see her beloved. The word yo acts as a pun (kakekotoba), meaning both ‘node’ and ‘this world’, and is an associative word (engo) for ashi (reed). The whole of line 4 in the original, awade kono yo o (not meet in this world), is translated here as ‘never meet again’.

  Prior to Teika, the poem seems not to have been considered one of Ise’s finest (it is not among the ten poems by Ise that Fujiwara no Kinto included in his anthology Sanjūrokuninshū), but Teika must have rated it highly because in addition to including it here he also placed it in his selection of the finest waka poems, the Kindai shūka (Superior Poems of Our Time; 1209).

  Lady Ise (c.875–c.938) was the foremost female poet of the early tenth century. She was a lady-in-waiting to Onshi, consort to Emperor Uda (r. 887–97), and after the death of her mistress she herself became one of Uda’s wives and bore him a child. Her daughter Nakatsukasa was also a distinguished poet, but for some reason Teika did not include her in the One Hundred Poets. Twenty-two of her poems appear in the Kokinshū and seventy-two in the Gosenshū.

  20

  Like the previous two poems, this one is also about overcoming difficulties in love, with a vow to persevere, whatever obstacles might lie in the way: ‘Despite the grief I feel, I intend to continue to see you, should it cost me my life.’ The headnote (kotobagaki) that precedes this poem in the Gosenshū (no. 961) provides some context: ‘Sent to the Kyogoku consort, after their affair had caused a ruckus.’ The Kyogoku consort was Fujiwara no Hoshi, a daughter of the powerful Fujiwara minister Tokihira (871–909). She became one of Emperor Uda’s consorts and bore him three sons. The author of the poem, Motoyoshi, was a famous lover and it seems that his courting of Hoshi, a future empress, must have created a scandal.

  Rhetorically, the poem features a pun (kakekotoba) on miotsukushi (channel markers) and mi o tsukusu, rendered mi-o-tsukushite in the original Japanese (to give up everything, including one’s life, for the sake of something). It was one that was commonly used in Heian poetry, often in association with the Naniwa Inlet, the entryway to the capital from the sea (see utamakura). Channel markers marked the safe course of navigation for boats sailing to and from the Heian capital. There may also be a second pun in the na in Naniwa, meaning ‘name’ or ‘reputation’, in which case, mi-o-tsukushite might refer to sacrificing not just one’s life but one’s reputation.

  Prince Motoyoshi (890–943), son of Emperor Yozei (poem 13), was known in his time as a great gallant. He figures in several episodes of The Tales of Yamato. Twenty of his poems appear in the imperial waka anthologies and his poems were collected in the Motoyoshi shinnō-shū.

  21

  Male Heian courtiers often assumed a female persona when composing poems. In this poem, the poet adopts the persona of a woman waiting for her lover. The poem is an example of the subgenre known as the ‘waiting woman’ (matsu onna). Because of social conventions, aristocratic women had to wait for their lovers to visit, often in vain. As the conceit became a literary convention, poems in this style were composed regardless of whether the poet had actually experienced such romantic misadventures.

  Lines 3 and 4, ‘through the long autumn night, / but only the moon greeted me’ (nagatsuki no / ariake no tsuki o), are usually thought to refer to a single night – the sense conveyed by this translation – but Teika interpreted them as entire months spent waiting in vain for a visit, giving the poem a more tale-like atmosphere in keeping with the taste of the Heian court.

  Priest Sosei (fl. late ninth/early tenth century), lay name Yoshimine no Harutoshi, was the son of Yoshimine no Munesada (Archbishop Henjo, poem 12) and is said to have entered religion at the urging of his father. A renowned poet and calligrapher, he is one of Kinto’s Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses. He was a favourite of Emperor Uda (r. 887–97) and thirty-six of his poems appear in the Kokinshū, making him the fourth best-represented poet in that anthology. His poems were collected in the Sosei hōshi-shū.

  22

  This is one of the very few poems that is based mostly on wordplay. The poem revolves around the idea that the Chinese ideograph for the word ‘storm’ (arashi: 嵐) is made by placing the character for ‘mountain’ (yama: 山) on top of the character for ‘wind’ (kaze: 風). There is also wit in the way arashi evokes the word arasu (to wreck or destroy). Such clever wordplay was highly popular in mid-Heian times. It was said not to be the taste of Teika and his contemporaries, who required a more serious emotional basis for poetry. Yet it is clear that Teika thought well of this poem because, quite apart from the ingenious wordplay, it is very lyrical, beautifully evoking the harsh autumnal landscape. Indeed, he included it in Eiga no taigai (A Rough Guide to Writing Poetry), as an example of a good poem.

  Fun’ya no Yasuhide (fl. second half of the ninth century), aka Bun’ya no Yasuhide. After serving as a provincial official, he was appointed Second Director of the Imperial Wardrobe in 879, perhaps in recognition of his poetic talent rather than any specific administrative competence. He is mentioned in both the Chinese and Japanese prefaces in the Kokinshū. He has six poems in the imperial waka anthologies, five of them in the Kokinshū. He is one of Tsurayuki’s Six Poetic Geniuses.

  23

  This beautiful poem is thought to be an adaptation of a couplet by the Chinese Tang poet Bai Juyi (772–846):

  In Swallow Tower on a seventh-month night,

  autumn comes to find you growing old alone.

  The subject of Bai Juyi’s poem is Guan Panpan, a singing girl who was the favourite of Minister Zhang Yin and who remained loyal to him after his death by continuing to live alone in a building within his residence called Swallow Tower. In Chisato’s poem, things are seen from the woman’s point of view (see matsu onna); she lives alone in her quarters with only the moon to visit her.

  The influence of Chinese poetry (kanshi) is also evident in the use of parallelism: ‘a thousand things’ (chiji ni mono) in the first part of the poem contrasts with ‘me alone’ (waga mi hitotsu) in the second part. Chinese poetry of the Six Dynasties and Tang periods (222–589 and 618–907) exerted an enormous influence on waka poetry. The idea that autumn was a sad season is also Chinese in origin.

  Oe no Chisato (fl. c.889–923) was a courtier and poet. He came from a prominent family of scholars and was the nephew of Ariwara no Yukihira (poem 16) and Narihira (poem 17). Chisato is best remembered today as the author of the Kudai waka (Waka on Lines from Chinese Poems; 894), known also as the Chisato-shū (Chisato Coll
ection), a selection of waka based on lines from famous Chinese poems. He has twenty-five poems in the imperial waka anthologies.

  24

  Poem 24 honours the gods of Mount Tamuke (a famous poetic location – see utamakura) while also showing the poet’s loyalty to the sovereign. Streamers made from unprocessed hemp fibre are used in many Shinto rituals as an offering to the gods or to decorate sacred sites. In place of the streamers, the poet suggests using the beautiful maple leaves of the mountain itself. It is a charming thought that perfectly captures the refined sensibility of Heian aristocrats and their love and admiration of nature. The poem was composed during an imperial progress that Emperor Uda made shortly after abdicating in 897. According to the Fuso ryakki (Concise Chronicle of Japan; 1094–1169), Michizane noted in his diary for 23 October 898 that he accompanied the retired emperor to Miyatake and that the poem was written on this occasion.

  Shortly after his death, Michizane himself came to be venerated as Kitano Tenjin, the god of learning, and the fact that this was a poem by a god about other gods added to its appeal for later readers.

  Sugawara no Michizane (845–903) was a poet, scholar and courtier. Born into a prominent family of Confucian scholars, he quickly rose through the ranks under Emperor Uda (r. 887–97), eventually reaching the office of Minister of the Right and the senior third rank. After Uda’s abdication, he fell victim to Fujiwara no Tokihira’s political machinations and was appointed Governor of Dazaifu (modern-day Kyushu), which amounted to being exiled. He died there in 903. The numerous calamities that followed his death were attributed to his angry spirit, and efforts to placate him eventually led to his being venerated as the god of learning. Japanese students to this day still earnestly pray to his spirit before exams. He left a sizeable body of work in Chinese (see kanshi) and Japanese, including a mixed anthology of Chinese and Japanese poems called the Shinsen man’yōshū (New Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves; c.893). Sometimes referred to as ‘Kanke’, which means ‘Sugawara Family’, he was among the third generation of individuals in the family to use that pseudonym. Zeami’s Noh play Oimatsu (The Ancient Pine), about a pine tree beloved by Michizane, is set in Anrakuji, where the grave of the Sugawara clan is located. The poem here was cited by the great fifteenth-century renga master Priest Sogi, in his Tsukushi no michi no ki, a travel diary of a pilgrimage to Dazaifu.

  25

  Rife with puns and double entendres, this is a typical tenth-century love poem. As well as the pun on ‘to meet’ in the au sound of ‘Osaka’ in Osaka Barrier (see utamakura and commentary to poem 10), further wordplay is provided by the words sa ne in sanekazura (a type of vine), which mean ‘let us lie together’, and by kuru, which can mean both ‘to wind’, as a creeping vine would do, and ‘to come’.

  According to the headnote (kotobagaki) in the Gosenshū (no. 701), the poem was addressed by a man to a woman. If kuru in the fifth line is taken to mean ‘to come’, however, it suggests that the poem would be composed either by a woman or by someone posing as one (see matsu onna), as it was women who typically received the visits of lovers, not vice versa.

  Fujiwara no Sadakata (873–932) was a prominent poet and courtier, appointed as the Minister of the Right of the Third Ward. The father of Asatada (poem 44), he was also the cousin and father-in-law of Kanesuke (poem 27). Sadakata appears in several stories in The Tales of Yamato. He has nineteen poems in the imperial waka anthologies, including one in the Kokinshū (no. 231), and a private collection of poems.

  26

  Poem 26 was composed after an imperial outing by the retired Emperor Uda (r. 887–97) to the Oi River (see also poem 24). Because the scenery was so breathtaking, the poet exhorts the current emperor, Uda’s son, Daigo (r. 897–930), to also visit the place. Mount Ogura in north-west Kyoto was famous for the beauty of its autumnal foliage (see utamakura).

  Here the poet addresses a feature of the landscape (the maples) as though it was human. This is not an uncommon device in waka; another example is in the Kokinshū (no. 832), composed by Kamutsuke no Mineo (fl. ninth century) as a funeral elegy for Fujiwara no Mototsune (836–91):

  Dear Cherry Blossoms

  of the Fukakusa Plain,

  if you have a heart

  for just this year,

  please bloom in black!

  (Fukakusa no / nobe no sakura shi / kokoro araba / kotoshi bakari wa / sumizome ni sake)

  It was common practice among sovereigns and senior members of the court to travel to places of scenic beauty, accompanied by their retainers, and to compose poetry at such locations. Besides their obvious recreational function, these outings served to strengthen the bonds between the members of the court and thus maintain harmony.

  Teika himself often accompanied Emperor Gotoba (poem 99) on his frequent excursions, although entries in the poet’s diary reveal that he was not always happy to do so and was critical of the various ministers and advisers who supported this over-indulgent lifestyle (see Robert H. Brower and Earl Miner (trans.), Fujiwara Teika’s ‘Superior Poems of our Time’ (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1967), p. 9). It is possible that Teika chose this particular poem because he himself owned a villa on Mount Ogura, as did Rensho, for whom the one hundred poems that eventually became the One Hundred Poets were initially selected (see the Introduction, here).

  Fujiwara no Tadahira (880–949), Chancellor of the Realm, was known posthumously as Teishinko (Lord Upright and Faithful). He succeeded his elder brother Tokihira as head of the powerful northern branch (hokke) of the Fujiwara clan. Tadahira was Minister of the Left under Emperor Daigo (r. 897–930) and regent (sesshō) under Emperor Suzaku (r. 930–46). He has seven poems in the Gosenshū and six more in later imperial waka anthologies. He also left a journal, the Teishinkō-ki.

  27

  Like poem 25, this love poem is full of wit and rhetorical play. The first three lines up to Izumigawa (Izumi River; literally, ‘River of Springs’) form a preface (jokotoba), conjuring up a visual picture that is connected to what follows by the similar-sounding itsu mi in line 4. In classical kana, the sounds zu and tsu were written in the same way, so the first part of Izumigawa puns with itsu mi ka (literally, ‘when will I see you?’). To convey the pun in the translation, ‘spring’ is used in two different senses, ‘River of Springs’ and ‘When did you first spring into view?’ This is reinforced in the Japanese by wakite (to spring) in line 2, an associative word (engo) for izumi (spring). The sound mi is repeated throughout the poem, giving it a strong aural cohesion. ‘Field of Jars’ is my translation of Mika no hara. As Mika is a place name (like the Izumi River, a well-known poetic location – see utamakura), it is not usually translated, but the character for it means ‘jar’ or ‘pot’; hara is usually translated as ‘field’ or ‘plain’. It is a slightly irregular translation, but poetic, I believe.

  Fujiwara no Kanesuke (877–923), a famous courtier and gallant, was known as the Middle Counsellor of the Embankment because his residence was next to the Kamo River. He was the cousin of Sadakata (poem 25) and had a long association with the compilers of the Kokinshū, Tsurayuki (poem 35) and Mitsune (poem 29). Kanesuke appears in many of the stories of The Tales of Yamato. He has fifty-seven poems in the imperial waka anthologies, as well as a private collection. He is one of Kinto’s Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses.

  28

  Poem 28 beautifully conflates natural and human imagery. The word karu (in the form karenu, ‘dried up’, in the poem) acts as a pun (kakekotoba) meaning both ‘to wither’ and ‘[visitors] grow infrequent’ that serves to connect the season (winter) to the poet’s sense of isolation. The word yamazato, translated here as ‘mountain abode’, can also mean ‘mountain hamlet’, conveying more of a sense of community and therefore not quite so isolated. The poem is a variation on one by Fujiwara no Okikaze (fl. early tenth century):

  When autumn comes

  I join the crickets

  in their plaintive cry,

  for I know grasses and visitors
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br />   will both dry up.

  (Aki kureba / mushi to tomo ni / nakarenuru / hito mo kusaba mo / karenu to omoeba)

  In poem 28, the season has changed to winter, which further deepens the sense of physical and emotional withering. In Teika’s time, it was the forlorn scenery of both autumn and winter that poets found most affecting, so it is not difficult to see what Teika liked about this poem. He himself composed a variation, which he included in his private collection, Shūigusō (The Dull Musings of a Chamberlain; 1216):

  Even on the path of dreams

  visitors have withered

  and frost settles

  on the meadow grasses

  as I pass the night in sleepless wait.

  (Yumeji made / hitome wa karenu / kusa no hara / oki akasu shimo ni / musubōretsutsu)

  Minamoto no Muneyuki (d. 939) was a grandson of Emperor Koko (poem 15). After being reduced to commoner status in 894, he held a number of nominal provincial governorships. He was appointed a magistrate in 939, but died shortly afterwards. Muneyuki has fifteen poems in the imperial waka anthologies, six of them in the Kokinshū, as well as a private collection. He is one of Kinto’s Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses.

  29

  Teika seems to have had a special fondness for white (see the Introduction, here), so it is not difficult to see what must have impressed him about poem 29. To the poet’s eyes, the early-morning frost makes the pure white chrysanthemums all but indistinguishable from the frost itself. The poet’s professed inability to tell apart the white chrysanthemums from the whiteness of the frost was something that Heian audiences, following in the footsteps of their Six-Dynasty Chinese predecessors, found irresistibly elegant. Indeed, the poem is a good example of the poetic device of ‘elegant confusion’ (mitate). Teika considered this one of his favourite poems and included it in virtually all of the numerous selections of poetry that he compiled. Common in Chinese poetry (kanshi), the chrysanthemum only began to be used in waka around the time of the Kokinshū (tenth century).